Category: Uncategorized

Notepad2: My favorite text editor!

notepad If there’s one thing you can count on having when you sit down at a Windows machine, it’s Notepad. The trusty little text editor even comes with the massively stripped-down Server Core edition of Windows Server 2008! Sometimes though, don’t you wish Notepad did just a little bit more? I used to, until I found the absolutely wonderful Notepad2.

Notepad2 looks a lot like Notepad, but it manages to include a ton of useful features while still remaining small and extremely quick. Here’s what it looks like on my Vista machine (sized down to fit):

notepad2

Notepad2 includes the following main features:

  • Syntax highlighting for lots of different programming languages and file formats (C# shown above)
  • Bracket matching
  • Encoding and newline conversion
  • Regular-expression search and replace

There are lots of really useful smaller features too, such as the zoom buttons on the toolbar, bookmarks, and favorites. I also really like the fact that there’s a “Read Only” item on the File menu that toggles the read only status of the file – super handy.

read only

There’s more information on Notepad2 at Wikipedia.

The download is less than 250 KB and there’s nothing to install. You can also download the source if you like. If English isn’t your language, there are 14 translated versions available.

If you do decide to download Notepad2, my advice would be to stick it in your C:WindowsSystem32 folder. That way, you can just type “notepad2” in the Run command or on any command line, and it’ll open. You should also add Notepad2 to your explorer context menu, so that when you right-click on a file, there’s an item to open it in Notepad2:

notepad2 open

To do that, download this zip file, extract it, right-click on the .reg file, and choose Merge. If you put Notepad2 somewhere other than the folder I mentioned above, edit the contents of the .reg file first.

Trust me, after you get used to using Notepad2, you’ll miss it dearly when you have to use a machine that only has Notepad. I stick Notepad2 (and the .reg file) on every USB key I have, so that I’ve always got it with me – that’s how much I love it!

Download Notepad2 from flo’s freeware

Why Messaging via Facebook Rocks

facebook Facebook has a ton of interesting features, but one of the most boring is increasingly becoming my favorite – messages. The wall is what most people think of when communicating via Facebook, but private messages are the way to go when you’d rather not have everyone reading what you have to say.

Here’s why I like messaging via Facebook:

  1. There’s no need to remember someone’s email address. There are lots of reasons that people get new email addresses, such as when they graduate, switch jobs, or switch ISPs. Unless you converse with someone regularly, keeping track of their email address can be a bit of a pain. On Facebook, all you need to know is a name.
  2. There’s no need to manage an address book. One solution to the above problem of remembering email addresses would be to create and maintain an address book. That can be quite a bit of work though. On Facebook, everyone is responsible for keeping their own information up-to-date, so you don’t have to worry about it.
  3. Receiving a message via Facebook is contextually appropriate. When you receive an email, it shows up in your inbox alongside messages for work, bacn, and spam. With Facebook however, you’re there specifically for communication, so you’re in the right frame of mind to be receiving messages from others. And so far, there’s no spam.
  4. It works on your mobile phone. You can setup Facebook to send your messages to you via SMS. You can also send messages to others by prefixing your text message with “msg firstname lastname”. Sure you can do something similar with some email providers, but it’s never simple to setup, and you often need a smartphone of some kind.
  5. Profile information is just a click away. When you receive an email from someone, you see their name, address, and message. If you’re lucky, they’ll have a signature with other information, but don’t count on it! On Facebook, simply click on the person’s name and you can see all their relevant contact info, their status, friends, and more.

It’s often the simplest features that are the most useful!

Edmonton Oilers Arena Feasibility Report – Link Roundup

edmonton oilers Earlier this week, the nine-member committee studying the feasibility of building a new hockey arena in Edmonton released their report. It contains no surprises, and recommends that if a new facility is to be built, it should be built downtown. I’m sure you’ve heard all about it on the news, but there are lots of excellent blog posts on the story that should not be missed. Here they are, with quotes.

From Covered in Oil:

The other question, whether a new arena would be better off in another part of the City will have to go unanswered, as the Feasibility Committee didn’t seem to even bother to look anywhere else.

From Grandinite:

If I get the underlying logic of this development, bringing people downtown will bring in cash. but that cash will flow out of the area if the owners do not live downtown. Sure, money will be spent at restaurants and casinos, but where do the profits go?

From Colby Cosh:

I’m not too clear after reading the summary just what is wrong with the existing Rexall Place. I was looking forward to some clear public explanation of this, but all we’ve been given is a lot of wind about “downtown revitalization.”

From The Battle of Alberta:

Dear Mr. Lowe,

We already have a hockey shrine in Edmonton. It’s called the Northlands Coliseum. You might remember it. You won five Stanley Cups there.

A arena without a history of accomplishment is not a shrine. It’s a mall with seats.

From Fighting for Taxpayers:

Dr. Brad Humphreys, the foremost expert on the economic benefits of professional sport teams and arenas has proven that there is not an economic growth, but merely a shift of where the money is spent.

From daveberta.ca:

Of course I want Edmonton’s downtown to become vibrant, but building a giant hockey rink won’t automatically put Edmonton in a position to rival downtown Montreal or New York (like some of the article’s have alluded). I’m still not convinced that spending upwards of $450 million (plus land costs) on an arena that will draw the suburbs downtown for a couple hours 2-3 nights a week is what will revitalize downtown.

From Alberta: Get Rich or Die Trying:

There will be a new arena and it will be downtown, any alternatives have pretty much been steamrolled over by the municipal government and the Edmonton media. There will be public funding, not direct tax increases, but by other means, and the province will give nothing.

From A Blog Of Pucks:

It would be an 18,000 seat 450 Million dollar arena. That’s great but once again I’ll ask the difficult question: Is this really going to make the wives like living in Edmonton any better? The committee better ask Pronger’s better half first.

And finally, this one isn’t a blog but an article at CBC today:

A new downtown Edmonton arena to replace Rexall Place could threaten one of the biggest annual events in the city, say officials with the Canadian Finals Rodeo.

The owners of Rexall Place, Edmonton Northlands, are ruling out the possibility of keeping it open as is, if a new arena is built.

“We can’t have two competing large-scale facilities,” Jerry Bouma, chair of the board, said Wednesday.

Also, be sure to check out this interview with Brad Humphreys.

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out. Stay tuned.

Recap: DemoCampEdmonton1

Last night was Edmonton’s first DemoCamp, and I think it was a major success! I counted about sixty people at one point, with some standing along the back walls. I liveblogged the whole event on Twitter. You can see my tweets at #hashtags and Twemes. I’ll summarize the key info in this post.

We had six demos, though I think we need to aim for more demo and less talk next time. Here’s what we saw:

  1. Greg Campbell of Spieker Point Inc. showed us http://www.spiekerpoint.com
  2. Daniel Boulet of Loa Corp. showed us http://www.loapowertools.com
  3. Dave Bodnarchuck of Event IQ Inc. showed us http://www.inviteright.com
  4. Bob Hesketh of Chinook Multimedia Inc. showed us http://www.chinookmultimedia.com
  5. Peter Urban of Smibs Inc. showed us http://www.smibs.com
  6. David Cree of FunderFish showed us http://www.funderfish.com

I think the demo of the evening was definitely Peter Urban’s. The applications they are building are really slick looking, and could be quite useful (its a CRM type app). He was also a really engaging speaker.

BarCamp coming soon!

The audience was a fairly diverse crowd. We had five women, three or four students, lots of developers, a few investors including Randy Thompson, and Don Iveson who is the city councillor for Ward 5. The two companies with the most representation were Zigtag and Nexopia. There was a serious lack of Microsoft dudes, so we’ll have to make sure EDMUG comes out to the next one!

There were a few announcements about upcoming events:

Mark your calendars! You may also want to join the BarCampEdmonton group on Facebook.

After the demos were done, most people headed over to Windsor pub for a few beers. I know lots of introductions were made, and people seemed to be having a good time. It’s great to see the community growing like this in Edmonton, and I have no doubt that the next DemoCamp will be even better!

Some things we can improve on:

  • Larger room, preferably with lots of power outlets!
  • Open Wi-Fi access (only those with U of A accounts could connect)
  • Reach out to more groups in Edmonton and area
  • Food? Everyone loves free food! Maybe we can find a sponsor

Thanks to Cam, Mark, Kevin, and all the other organizers for a great event.

DemoCampEdmonton1

democampedmonton I meant to blog about this earlier and simply forgot. Tomorrow evening I’ll be attending the first ever DemoCamp here in Edmonton. Wondering what a DemoCamp is? It’s a kind of BarCamp:

DemoCamp is a variation of the un-conference style of event, started by the TorCamp group as an excuse to have more regular meetings.

Essentially a bunch of people get together and a few of them demo something they are working on. The only rules are that you can’t use PowerPoint or slideshows (you need to have something to demo) and that you’re limited to 10 minutes.

You can read more about DemoCamp here, and about BarCamp at Wikipedia.

If you’d like to come to tomorrow night’s event, here are the details:

Date: Wednesday March 26, 2008
Time: 6:30pm to 8:30pm
Location: University of Alberta School of Business B-9
All are welcome! & It is free to attend.

The event is also listed at Upcoming and on Facebook.

If you can’t make it, check out this page for future camps, and the BarCampEdmonton blog.

I Love TripIt (And You Will Too!)

Late last year I came across TripIt, a free Web 2.0 travel organization service. TripIt helps you automatically build an itinerary, access it from multiple locations and devices, share it with others, and more. It also automatically includes maps and weather forecasts, among other information.

I’ve used TripIt four times now. The first was my trip to New York over Christmas. I managed to convince Sharon to join, and we built our entire itinerary using TripIt. I also used it for my trip to Yellowknife, for Northern Voice 2008, and for my recent weekend trip to Calgary. TripIt is dead simple to use, and once you get used to using it you sort of get addicted!

The way it works is you book your flights, hotels, car rentals, and restaurant reservations as you would normally. Then, forward your confirmation emails to plans@tripit.com. TripIt will automatically recognize the information, and insert it into your new itinerary. The only time this hasn’t worked for me was when we made our reservation at Bar Americain in New York (which supports OpenTable). I have to think that was a temporary glitch, because it has been flawless ever since (including our OpenTable reservation at Blink in Calgary). Megan booked the flights to Vancouver for Northern Voice, so I didn’t have a confirmation email to forward. I entered the information manually, and TripIt even made that easier – it knew the departure and arrival times and other information based only on the airline and flight number. Pretty cool.

tripit

That’s why I love TripIt – it’s just so deliciously simple! Forward the confirmation email and you’re done.

Sure you can add extra information and custom items to the itinerary, but TripIt does the heavy lifting and that’s what is most important. You can print your itinerary of course, and the formatting that TripIt provides is really clean and simple. If you forget to do that however, no worries – TripIt can send you your itinerary via email! You can send the command “get trip” to plans@tripit.com, and it’ll respond with your information. Or you can send something more specific, such as “get flight”. It’s really quite neat! You can learn more about the TripIt To Me feature here.

Some other handy features that TripIt includes:

  • The ability to share your trips with others. They can be either viewers or collaborators, meaning they can add items to the itinerary.
  • A travel guide for your destination. TripIt will load information from Wikipedia, Flickr, Eventful, and more.
  • See Who’s Close is a new feature that shows you when your connections (friends) are going to be near you at any given time.
  • iCal support, meaning you can load your itinerary up in Outlook, Google Calendar, and more.

As much as I love TripIt, it’s not perfect. Here are the top three features I’d like to see them add:

  1. Twitter and SMS support! Most other apps that I use on a regular basis (such as Remember The Milk) have this. Email is great, but Twitter and text messaging are better.
  2. Facebook widget. What I’d really like is for TripIt to do what dopplr does – show upcoming trips, and post an item to my news feed when traveling. If TripIt had this feature, I probably wouldn’t use dopplr anymore.
  3. Library of locations. When we went to NY, we added items like “Greenwich Village” and “Statue of Liberty” ourselves. It would have been really awesome if TripIt could have recognized those locations and automatically included relevant information (such as directions from/to our previous/next locations, pricing information, etc). This feature would make TripIt absolutely incredible!

If you’re just planning a quick road trip to see family or friends, TripIt may not be that useful for you. For all other kinds of trips however, I think you’ll find TripIt to be absolutely indispensable. I can honestly say I won’t travel without it anymore!

Apple Software Update delivers Safari by default

apple safari For years, software manufacturers have been bundling applications together. Chances are if you download an instant messaging client from Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo, you’ll also be asked to install their toolbar and search engine. I would say that such behavior has come to be expected when you download something new. Including optional packages in updates however, is not something that is done regularly. Microsoft doesn’t include new applications in automatic updates, for instance. You can imagine the uproar there would be if they did – it was bad enough when they included IE7 (an update to existing software).

Apple recently started doing this with its Software Update service. Instead of including just updates for iTunes, the service now includes Safari by default. Mozilla CEO John Lilly explains:

Anyone who uses iTunes on Windows has Apple Software Update installed on their machines, which does just what I’ve described above: it checks for new patches available for Apple-produced software on your Windows machine, alerts the user to the availability, and allows updates to be installed. That’s great — wonderful, in fact. Makes everyone more likely to have current, patched versions of Apple’s software, and makes everyone safer.

The problem here is that it lists Safari for getting an update — and has the “Install” box checked by default — even if you haven’t ever installed Safari on your PC.

Lilly points out that this is wrong, because it “means that an update isn’t just an update” and that it “undermines the safety of users on the web”. I have to agree with him.

Tom Krazit at CNET says this isn’t a big issue:

If you don’t want Safari, don’t click “install.”

Normally I’d say he makes a good point, but this is different. Apple hasn’t made Safari an opt-in choice for users, they’ve checked it by default. Most users will just click install, meaning they’ll get Safari too.

Not cool, Apple.

Read: CNET News.com, John Lilly

Starbucks: All Your Clover Are Belong To Us

starbucks Their stock has been slumping for over a year now, and Howard Schultz has had enough. He recently took back the CEO position at Starbucks, and pledged to make changes that would bring about the return of the Starbucks experience. Yesterday at the company’s annual shareholders meeting, he delivered:

“Eleven weeks ago, I made a personal commitment to every one of our customers and partners (employees) to reaffirm our place as the world’s coffee authority,” said Schultz. “By embracing our heritage, returning to our core — all things coffee — and our relentless commitment to innovation, we will reignite the emotional connection we have with our customers and transform the Starbucks Experience.”

Here’s what they announced:

  • Starbucks has purchased The Coffee Equipment Company, who makes the Clover machine. Some stores in Seattle and Boston already use the Clover. This acquisition means the Clover is coming to a coffee shop near you!
  • A new “everyday” blend of drip coffee called Pike Place Roast. Currently, the drip coffee available rotates.
  • Another new espresso machine, called the Mastrena. The existing Verisimo machines are also getting upgraded in the U.S. and Canada.
  • An online community: mystarbucksidea.com.
  • Rewards for Starbucks Card holders! Starting in April, card holders in the U.S. and Canada will receive complimentary customization on syrups and milk, free refills on brewed coffee during the same visit, a complimentary Tall beverage when you buy a pound of coffee, and two hours per day of free Wi-Fi.

Of course, the free Wi-Fi initiative was actually announced last month. I checked out the new community, and it seems like an attempt to offer a company-sanctioned outlet for discussion that already happens at places like the Starbucks Gossip blog. The rewards program is somewhat disappointing, but it’s only the first phase apparently.

I am looking forward to the new drip blend, and the Clover! Here’s what the co-founder of Coffee Equipment Co. had to say:

Having his company bought by Starbucks Corp. wasn’t his initial plan, but it became “a dream come true” for Zander Nosler, who co-founded Ballard’s The Coffee Equipment Co. in May 2004.

“We’re ecstatic,” said Nosler, 36. “There will be amazing opportunities, amazing resources to turn up the heat on making some new products and doing R&D.”

Apparently the acquisition announcement pleased shareholders more than anything else. I can’t say I’m surprised! I wonder how all the little independent coffee shops that used the Clover as a point of differentiation are taking the news.

Time will tell if these announcements actually do “transform the Starbucks Experience,” but I think the Clover purchase was really smart regardless.

Read: Yahoo! Finance, Seattle Times

PS. If the title of this post doesn’t make sense to you, read this article at Wikipedia.

Food Glorious Food! In Calgary!

I stole the first part of the title from my sister – she uses it for pictures of food she makes and I like the way it sounds. I love food! So much so that Sharon and I went down to Calgary this past weekend for Dine Out week. It was also a good excuse for a short break away from everything.

Montreal Smoked Meat Omelette

Sharon is a great writer, and she summarized our trip very well on her blog – Part 1 and Part 2. Instead of repeating what she’s already written, I’ll just share a few highlights:

  • We ate at the following restaurants: blink and Galaxie Diner. Both were awesome! The photo above is the Montreal Smoked Meat Omelette from Galaxie. It’s a great little diner, with Coke memorabilia everywhere!
  • We stayed at the Westin Calgary, which is a really nice hotel. It even has a Starbucks in the lobby. We were upgraded to the business tower, which included free Internet!
  • We checked out the new glass floor at the Calgary Tower – it was mostly underwhelming (apparently that’s not a real word?).
  • We also checked out the Calgary Farmer’s Market, which was pretty cool! Lots of stuff to see, including Phil & Sebastian, where we tried coffee made using the Clover.
  • I got to use my iPod touch with open wireless to find directions using the Maps application!
  • It snowed like crazy on Saturday night in Calgary. I was hoping we’d escape the snow, but I guess we weren’t so lucky. I did get a few good pictures though.
  • We walked through Chinook Centre, but I only bought two shirts from Old Navy (not a big shopper, what can I say).
  • We stopped in Red Deer on the way back to see Tom & Bry. We had dinner at BP’s, and our waitress was pretty terrible. Either really new, or really dumb.
  • We didn’t go to Starbucks once, though we did drink lots of coffee. Crazy isn’t it?!
  • My photos of the trip are here.

It was fun! Dine Out Calgary will happen again next year, from March 9th to March 16th. Edmonton has one too.

U of A forces students to use ancient software

frontpage I’ve written many times before about my disappointment with the state of technology education at the University of Alberta, most recently here. My biggest complaint has usually been that they teach outdated or otherwise useless concepts in Computing Sciences and other fields, but the tools and technologies they choose and use are often just as bad (and these influence the concepts).

Here’s an example from my friend Eric, who is nearly finished his MIS degree at the School of Business:

Our latest project requires us to develop a single web page using Microsoft FrontPage that includes an Access database we created last week. This is worth 10% of our course mark.

Microsoft discontinued FrontPage in 2006, two years ago.

Technically the product was discontinued in 2006, but the last release was actually back in 2003. Yes, nearly five years ago.

I remember FrontPage with a very tiny amount of fondness. It was the first web page building tool I ever used, back when I was in junior high. It was so fun! Then I got a little older, a little smarter, and realized that FrontPage was absolute crap. Microsoft did too, and decided they’d give up on the application that they had originally purchased for about $130 million. It has since been replaced with SharePoint Designer and Expression Web.

Eric asked his professors why they are being forced to use FrontPage, and was told that the university has a contract for support until the end of the semester.

This is completely unacceptable. Students are being taught to use a tool they’ll never use in the real world. A tool that hinders development more than it helps (due to some very strange functionality, such as not keeping code and design views in sync). A tool that generates such terrible, invalid HTML that Microsoft felt it was better to start over.

That point about standards is particularly important, IMHO. By using FrontPage, the U of A is essentially teaching students that generating crappy code is okay. The garbage that FrontPage generates (and that IE used to support) is part of the reason for this mess. Microsoft has decided recently that IE8 will interpret pages in the most standards compliant way it can, a welcome change (even if it doesn’t completely pan out).

Eric finishes with:

You wouldn’t pay $468.60 for a math course using slide rules, so why should we pay to use outdated software?

It’s a good point, but more important than the tool is the concept. You wouldn’t pay $468.60 for an accounting course that taught you how to create non-standard balance sheets, so why should you pay for a technology course that teaches you to create non-standard web pages?

Read: Soliciting Fame